Page 50 of Slew Foot
Jesse pulled it away. “Why didn’t you start?”
“We got distracted. Crawford was telling us stories.”
“Aww fuck. You didn’t?” Connor said with a groan as he dumped the bags on the nearby table.
Crawford grinned. “You didn’t want them to know?”
“It doesn’t exactly look fuckin’ good to have your captain starting bar fights,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, but you were standing up for us!” Tanner said cheerfully. “Which isawesome.”
Connor sighed. “Well, if I’d known you were in here talking about that shit, I wouldn’t have bought dessert for you all. This is what I get for being nice to you delinquents.”
Graham looked offended, which was fair. He was nice and polite and never, ever got in trouble. Mickey liked him.
“Wait,” Jesse said slowly. “You got in abar fight, Connor. Holy shit. How did I not know this about you?”
“Because it was stupid,” Connor said with a huff. “I should have used my words instead of my fists.”
“Okay, but this totally resets my world view,” Jesse said, his smile gleaming brightly. “I now have to reassess everything I know about you.”
“You’ve seen me get in on-ice fights,” Connor protested.
“Yeah, but that’shockey.”
And Mickey got it. Because getting in a fight on the ice was very different than getting in one off-ice. On the ice, it was usually about protecting teammates or letting off steam so it didn’t boil over into something worse.
“Aww, lay off him,” Crawford drawled. “He was standing up for his brother and the other rainbow guys.”
Someone—maybe Tanner—snorted. “Rainbow guys?”
“What the fuck do you want me to call you?” He waved vaguely.
“I dunno. Gay?”
“But aren’t you …”
“Pansexual, yeah,” Tanner said.
“And some of you are bi or whatever. What the fuck do I say when it’s all of you together?”
“LGBTQ+?” Tanner said with an unspoken but obviousduhon the end.
“Yeah, that fuckin’ rolls off the tongue. Anyway, what’s wrong with rainbow? I don’t mean it in a bad way or anything. It’s just you’re all into colorful shit.”
“Uhh, nothing, I guess?” Tanner said with a shrug. “I mean, it doesn’t bother me but I dunno how everyone else feels about it.”
Everyone else kinda shrugged too, including Mickey. He wasn’t actually into the “colorful shit” as Crawford had called it but it didn’t bother him to be called a rainbow guy either.
“There are worse things you could call us,” Jesse said with a laugh.
Privately, Mickey agreed. He could never quite get a read on Crawford. Though, in this case, he suspected this was actually Crawford trying to be halfway decent and coming across as kind of an asshole because he was an abrasive person with no couth.
“Are we gonna eat some fuckin’ dessert and watch a goddamn movie or are we going to debate what some of us want to be called?” Connor groused.
“Dessert!” several guys shouted.
It was a loud, mad scramble after, with guys standing up to dig through the bags and argue about which dessert they wanted. Apparently, Jesse and Connor had arranged for a delivery from the barbecue place they’d gone to earlier.
